“Stolen books?” I said, clutching the augury to my chest. “We haven’t had anything stolen.”
“We believe you may have received stolen books recently,” Acosta said, smiling unpleasantly. He reached inside his coat and pulled out a piece of paper. “Recognize this?”
I took the paper from his hand. It was one of our receipts, filled out by Judy, with a title, date, and purchase price written on it. Below the price was written “pd. in trade and cash.” It was muddy on one corner as if it had been ground into the dirt. “It’s an Abernathy’s receipt,” I said.
Acosta’s smile broadened. I hated that smile. I’d met Acosta and his partner, Detective Green, when my old boss, Mr. Briggs, had been murdered, and Acosta had thought I was involved. Then he’d showed up when my ex-boyfriend Chet had “disappeared” and suggested I had something to do with that too. I was pretty sure he had me on some kind of watch list down at the precinct, or wherever he and his partner lurked when they weren’t harassing innocent young women.
Except, this time, I might not be innocent. Paid in trade…we didn’t have any way to prove the books our customers brought in weren’t stolen, and if the oracle didn’t care enough to reject stolen books, it was entirely possible I had received stolen goods and hadn’t known it. “It means the customer paid partly in cash and partly in used books,” I continued.
“Can you tell us the name of the customer?”
“Um…I think so.” The number of the augury was in the upper left corner of the receipt. I got out the ledger from beneath the counter and flipped through the pages. The database would be faster, but I didn’t like leaving these two unsupervised in my store. “Mitch Hallstrom.” I remembered the smoky smell of the books he’d brought in. Desperate, eager Mitch Hallstrom.
“What else can you tell us about him?”
“Do you suspect him of stealing books?”
“We’ll ask the questions, Ms. Davies. Anything else?”
I decided against antagonizing the man further. “He’s been in two—no, three times. He always pays with trade and sometimes with a little cash. What is this about, detective?”
Acosta wasn’t paying attention to me. He was scanning the room, taking an inventory with his eyes. “Mr. Hallstrom may have participated in several high-end book thefts. We believe he used this store to fence his stolen property.”
“I had no idea any of Mr. Hallstrom’s books were stolen.”
“Let’s hope that’s true.” Acosta took out his notebook and wrote a few words. “Do you have any of the books Mr. Hallstrom brought in?”
“I…don’t know. We don’t keep a very good inventory here.”
“We’ll have to take a look around.”
“Do you have a search warrant?” Cynthia said.
Both detectives focused on her. I’d forgotten she was there. “We don’t need a warrant to browse,” Detective Green said. “This is a bookstore.”
“But you need a warrant if you want anything you find to be legitimate evidence,” Cynthia said. “And you certainly need a warrant if you want to do a full inventory of the store. So I suggest you come back when you have one.”
The detectives turned their attention to me. “It would be better if you cooperated,” Acosta said. “Better for you, certainly.”
“I’ll be happy to welcome you back when you have a search warrant,” I said, trying to keep my voice from trembling the way my knees were.
Acosta gave me one final, long stare, then followed his partner out of the store. I slumped against the counter. “Why does this keep happening to me?”
“You can’t let them inventory Abernathy’s,” my female customer said. “It would kill the oracle, oh dear, kill it dead.”
“What oracle?” Cynthia said.
My face felt suddenly numb. “Um,” I said, but my tired brain couldn’t manage anything creative. The two elderly Nicolliens looked like they might have heart attacks right there on Abernathy’s linoleum floor. “It’s…um…”
“I know what an oracle is,” Cynthia said. “But what was she talking about? Killing an oracle? That doesn’t sound like something out of legend.”
“She was talking about Abernathy’s,” Judy said, prompting all of us to turn around and look at her. “Abernathy’s isn’t a bookstore. It gives out prophecies to those who know to ask for them.”
“Judy!” I exclaimed.
“Sometimes you have to cut your losses, Helena,” Judy said, approaching us until she stood nose-to-chin with the much taller Cynthia. “And she’s not going to tell anyone. Are you, Cynthia?”
“I don’t even know what I’d say.” Cynthia turned to me. “Is this true? You run a store that sells prophecies?”
“Yes. They’re called auguries.”
“That’s what that man was talking about last week. Augury. Not a book series.” Cynthia’s eyes were gleaming. “Do they always come true?”
“Yes. Sort of. Cynthia—”
“No, I believe you. It’s just amazing. Why doesn’t everyone know about this?”
“Because most people wouldn’t believe it,” Judy said, “and it’s not intended for frivolous purposes.”
That was a lie, but I guessed Judy didn’t want to go into details about magi and the Long War. Cutting our losses didn’t mean giving everything away.
Cynthia smiled broadly. “Oh, I won’t use it frivolously,” she said.
“Wait—what? Cynthia, you can’t—”
“Why not? I know about it now, so why can’t I use it?”
“There’s no reason she can’t,” Judy said. “Call it trade in exchange for her silence.”
“No one would believe it if she started talking about it. And I know the Board of Neutralities have some way of shutting people up.” The thought of how permanent that shutting-up might be made me wish I hadn’t said anything.
“I won’t tell,” Cynthia said. She looked hurt that we’d even suggested she might. “I just want to use it. Can’t I, Helena?”
Her expression was so imploring I sighed. “You can’t tell anyone, all right?”
“I won’t, honest! But you should help these nice people. Is this the prophecy? This book? I don’t think The Double Comfort Safari Club is much of a prophecy.”
I explained how auguries worked while Judy filled out the ledger and the receipt for the Nicollien couple. They scurried out the door as fast as they could, casting frightened glances at me as if they couldn’t quite believe I wouldn’t have them arrested for accidentally revealing the truth about Abernathy’s. Maybe I should, but they were so scared, I felt bad about doing it. Besides, everything had worked out, and my sister knew some of the truth about my life…
…my rapacious, no-nonsense sister who had a take-no-prisoners attitude toward life and the steely determination to get her own way. New York might be doomed.
I didn’t tell her anything about the Long War, or magi, reasoning that Judy was right and the details would only confuse her. Maybe it was something I could tell her some other time. I couldn’t believe I was contemplating sharing secrets with Cynthia, who a week ago was my sworn enemy. Maybe things still weren’t perfect between us, but I felt friendlier toward her now than I ever had.
Finally, Cynthia hugged me, and said, “Well. We’ve exchanged some pretty big secrets. Thank you for listening. And for being my sister.”
“Good luck,” I said, “and thanks for wanting to spend time with me. Maybe we don’t have as many differences as I thought.”
“I’ll call you once I’ve talked to Ethan.” She kissed my cheek and waved goodbye. “Sorry to hear about your boyfriend, Judy.”
“Uh…thanks,” Judy said, casting a confused look at me. I shrugged.
When she was gone, Judy said, “Well, hell. Now what do we do?”
“We just gave access to Abernathy’s to a non-magus, non-Warden who doesn’t even know about the Long War,” I said. “Do you think Lucia will kill us slowly, or will she make it quick?”
“I don’t think anyone needs to know about this. We handled it the best we could, and Lucia can’t blame us for that. Besides, there’s always Margie and George to throw under the bus if we have to. It was Margie’s fault, after all.”
“I feel bad about blaming them. It’s not their fault if they forgot Cynthia wasn’t a Warden. People come in here all the time who are strangers, and I never ask to see their Warden cards. There’s no such thing as a Warden card, is there?”
“No. But I take your meaning.”
“It’s funny, but those detectives were asking about Mr. Hallstrom—”
“What detectives?”
“My old friends Acosta and Green. Apparently Mr. Hallstrom has been paying us in stolen books. I was just thinking it’s weird that I’d never seen him before a week ago last Friday. Did you know him?”
“I’d never seen him before. But I don’t know all the Nicolliens in the city. Lots of them, but not everyone.”
I walked away toward the back of the store. “Let’s see what he left behind.”
The box of books the oracle had rejected was still in the office. “I wish I actually knew anything about old books,” I said, sorting through them. “I should probably give these to the detectives. I’m sure, if the stolen books were valuable, they’ve got a list. Though they might insist on searching the entire inventory if there are more than just these. Which there are.”
“They were going to search?” Judy sat back on her heels.
“Cynthia made them go get a search warrant.”
Judy stood up. “Call the Board of Neutralities right now,” she said. “Get their lawyers involved. We can’t let anyone search Abernathy’s that closely.”
“But they wouldn’t,” I said, and closed my eyes. “They would.” I whipped out my phone. “I don’t have Mr. Ragsdale’s number.”
“I do.” Judy recited it for me. I waited, listening to it ring.
Finally, a voice said, “Ragsdale’s office.” It was a nasally female voice with a slight Brooklyn accent, making me wonder just where Ragsdale’s office was.
“This is Helena Davies,” I said. “I need to speak to Mr. Ragsdale immediately. This is an emergency.”
“One moment, please.”
“How long does it take to get a warrant?” I said.
Judy shrugged. “I only know about it from watching Law and Order re-runs.”
“Ms. Davies,” Ragsdale said. “You have an emergency?”
I quickly recounted the episode with the detectives and my concern about them inventorying Abernathy’s and voiding the indeterminacy principle.
Ragsdale said, “Leave it to us. Just go on running the store.”
“Should I give them the books we still have?”
“Put them aside for our lawyers to handle. Admit to nothing, but don’t obstruct the detectives in any way. Don’t worry. This isn’t the first time Abernathy’s has received stolen books.”
I didn’t like how casual he sounded about the possibility of the store being an accessory to crime, but if Abernathy’s had accepted Hallstrom’s stolen books in trade, it clearly didn’t care about human laws, and there wasn’t anything I could do about it. “Thank you,” I said, and hung up.
“This doesn’t tell us anything about Hallstrom, though,” Judy said. “Just that he’s a thief and we don’t know anyone who knows him.”
“I wish I knew what kind of magus he is. If he’s a wood magus, and a loner, and a stranger to the community…couldn’t he be our serial killer?”
“Why a wood magus?”
“Lucia said they were mostly sure the killer is a wood magus, based on where the attacks happened.”
“I don’t think Father knows that.”
“He’s not part of her investigation. I’m not sure she’s bound to tell him everything.”
“True, but he’s trying to catch the killer too. It could only help him to know.”
Startled, I exclaimed, “You can’t tell him! That might be privileged information!”
“Don’t worry, Helena, I’m not going to tell him. But I might lean on Lucia to do it.”
I groaned and buried my face in my hands. “Is this day over yet?”
No Ambrosites came in at two o’clock. Around three-thirty, a couple of women in severe business pantsuits with their hair pulled straight back arrived. “The box, Ms. Davies,” one of them said to me.
“The—oh, the box.” I retrieved the box of Hallstrom’s rejects and handed it to her. Both women nodded and left with no other word. It felt like I’d just had a visit from the Mob. If they were representative of the Board of Neutralities’ lawyers, I felt suddenly more hopeful.
The store stayed mostly empty for the rest of the afternoon. Derrick and the team didn’t appear. The detectives didn’t return, with or without a warrant. A few Ambrosites came in toward closing time, moving furtively and checking their surroundings constantly as if they feared being attacked. I asked each of them if they knew Mitch Hallstrom; none of them did. Well, if he was a Nicollien, that made sense.
It occurred to me that I didn’t actually know if he was a Nicollien. I’d assumed it because he always came in the morning, but I’d never seen him with a familiar, and if he was a stranger to Portland he might not even know about the curfews. The more I thought about it, the more I was convinced Hallstrom was suspicious. I tried to tell myself I was just desperate to find the killer so Malcolm could be exonerated, but my mind wouldn’t let go of the theory.
Judy left early, explaining that she needed to be home for a meeting her father was hosting. “I keep telling him it doesn’t look good, me playing hostess at a Nicollien gathering, but he always claims he’s not doing anything partisan. I think he just likes having me around, like a security blanket.”
“Or a teddy bear.”
“Thanks, Helena, I’ve always wanted to be compared to a stuffed toy.” She pretended to snarl at me and left by the front door.
I spent the last hour alternately prowling the shelves, hopelessly trying to identify the stolen books, and sitting behind the counter playing with the antique cash register. My thoughts kept drifting to Malcolm, wondering where he was, whether he’d found the killer yet, if he was thinking of me at all…Every time I drifted too far, I yanked myself back. Now was definitely not the time for daydreaming, not while he was in so much danger.
Once again I thought about the Accords and what they really said. Was it laid out in black and white that a custodian of a Neutrality couldn’t be romantically involved with a member of a faction? Were there rules about strong friendships, too? Why shouldn’t those be as forbidden as romance? Either way, you ran the risk of being partisan, using your Neutrality’s powers on behalf of your lover or your friend. I pounded the glass top of the counter once with my fist. It was just so unfair. Hadn’t I proved I could be impartial? I was going to find a copy of the Accords and I was going to go over it with a highlighter and a magnifying glass. I was tired of living my life in fear.
The door jangled open. “Ms. Davies,” Detective Acosta said. “I’m glad we’re not too late.”
I checked my phone. “We close in ten minutes.”
“We won’t keep you long,” Detective Green said. He walked a few paces toward the first bookcase and surveyed its contents.
“Did you bring a warrant?”
“Now, there’s a funny thing,” Acosta said. “There have been…difficulties…in getting a warrant to search this store. Abernathy’s has some powerful lawyers, it seems. Don’t you think that’s odd?”
“I don’t know. I just run the store. The owners don’t tell me anything.”
“I think it’s odd.” Acosta leaned against the cracked glass of the countertop. “We’re glad you were able to find some of the stolen books.”
Wow, those lawyers work fast. “They hadn’t been shelved yet. I’m afraid I don’t know if there are any others.”
“We’ll find them, if they’re here.”
Good luck with that. “Did you have any other questions?”
“Just one. Did Mr. Hallstrom give a mailing address when he purchased the books?”
“No, I’m afraid not. I wish I could help you with that.” I was totally sincere. If I knew Hallstrom’s address, I could get Lucia to send someone to roust him.
“I appreciate that. I believe you do want to help us, Ms. Davies. So anything you know—anything at all—it would be best if you shared that with us voluntarily.”
“What else do you think I know?” His words had me genuinely puzzled. I had no idea what he thought I knew, unless he thought I was actually a fence and the frequent recipient of stolen books.
“I know about small businesses like this one. You get to know your customers quite well, don’t you?”
Light dawned. “Oh, you think I know something about Mr. Hallstrom I’m not telling you because we’re friends! I never met him before last week. Trust me, detective, I want you to catch the guy. Think about it from my perspective. He brought me stolen books, and he’s probably taken stolen books to other stores. I paid good money for the ones I gave the police, money I’m not going to get back. Mr. Hallstrom cheated me, and I want him behind bars.”
“That’s a rousing speech.”
“I meant every word. How did you even find out about Mr. Hallstrom to know he’d stolen the books? I wouldn’t think book theft was a high priority case.”
“It is when the books are as valuable as these. But we found him accidentally. He was camping illegally in the Powell Butte park and someone reported him.”
“But—then didn’t you capture him?” I wouldn’t have thought there was anywhere in Powell Butte Nature Park that someone could secretly camp out.
Acosta smiled grimly. “We found his campsite, along with a box of stolen books and the receipt I showed you. He wasn’t there and he hasn’t come back. So we owe you thanks for putting a name to our thief.”
“Um…you’re welcome.”
Acosta pushed upright and nodded. “Sure there’s nothing you want to tell us?”
“Detective, can I ask you an insulting question?”
He raised one eyebrow. “Ask away.”
“Is there something about me that screams ‘suspicious character’?”
To my surprise, he laughed. “Good night, Ms. Davies,” he said, and beckoned to Green. As the two of them left the store, I stared after them in disbelief. That had been a non-answer for sure. And yet Acosta had told me more than he had to…was it information I could use?
I locked up and turned the sign to CLOSED, then grabbed my car keys and purse and drove to a nearby convenience store. They had a display of maps near the cash register, and I bought one that showed Portland and nearby cities. It was probably too big for what I had in mind, but it was unlikely I’d find a map showing just east Portland.
I returned home and ran up the steps to my office, where I moved my laptop off Silas’s desk and spread out the map. Powell Butte Nature Park was off-center and slightly toward the bottom of the map. I got out a red Sharpie and marked the location where Bannister had been killed, close to her house off Foster Road. It was the only address I remembered. I had to go downstairs to look up the other two addresses, then trudge back down a second time to look up the fourth victim, Sydney Eason, in the database for her address. I didn’t know the exact locations they’d been killed, but the map was big enough it could handle a discrepancy of no more than a mile.
With my Sharpie I marked the other three deaths on the map and took a step backward to get the big picture. It was possible to draw a circle centered on the park that had all those dots within its circumference, but just as possible to draw a different circle centered somewhere else. I needed more data.
I drew a dot where Tiffany’s house was, at roughly Powell and 122nd, and immediately felt heartened: it fit inside the rough circle centered on the park. Still not proof. I fired up my laptop and started doing some White Pages searches on the other victims’ names. I only found four of the six, but all four fit within my circle. Either this was a huge coincidence, or I’d found solid evidence that someone based out of Powell Butte park had killed the victims.
I went for my phone, but hesitated to call Lucia. She was likely to blow me off again if this was all I had, as certain as I was of my conclusion. What I needed was to locate Hallstrom so I could have Lucia pick him up for questioning. I just wasn’t sure how. If he came into the store…no, it would be too dangerous for me to try to apprehend him myself. And it would be too much to hope that he’d suddenly decide he needed a mail-in augury, complete with mailing address.
I folded the map and logged off. Maybe Judy would have an answer. For now, I was going to eat something and read Silas’s diary. When you put it that way, it sounded more like snooping. But I couldn’t imagine him not wanting people to read it if he’d left it in the store. Now I’d finally learn the story behind moving the oracle from England to the United States. It was almost enough to make me forget my fears for Malcolm. Almost.